If you don’t think social media is a worthwhile marketing opportunity, think again.

There are so many advantages of social media marketing, read on to find out our top 5.

The Top 5 Advantages of Social Media Marketing

The benefits of social media include the opportunity for engagement, better SEO, and valuable marketing insight, to name a few. Let’s dive in.

1. You Can Meet Your Customers Where They Already Are

When The Little Mermaid sang, “I want to be where the people are” she probably wasn’t talking about social media. (Especially considering the movie came out in 1989). But if you’re a marketer, you better be thinking like Ariel.

A presence on social media gives you the opportunity to go to your customers where they already hang out, rather than making them come to you.

Even just by making a free business page on Facebook, you’ve created a platform where you can build a community. Customers can leave reviews, promote your content, advertise for you by “checking in,” and so much more.

This allows a casual place to interact with customers, customer leads, and previous customers all at the same time.

You can show off your customer service by responding to reviews and engaging with commenters. You can even offer promotions exclusive to that social platform to track conversion rates.

Your presence on social media builds brand recognition and brand loyalty too. The nature of social media humanizes your brand, allowing you to promote your business in the form of a conversation, rather than a stagnant advertisement.

2. Increase Your Inbound Traffic

Increased inbound traffic is one of the biggest advantages of social media.

Without it, customers will only be able to find your brand if they type in your website address, search your brand name, or happen to you when they search specific keywords.

This is very limiting to customers who have yet to discover your brand.

Social media boosts your SEO (search engine optimization) because every social media page increases your web presence. Every piece of content you release or promote on social media increases your visibility. It gives customers and customer lead a chance to click through to your website, and hopefully convert into a sale.

Increased visibility means more leads, more conversions, and more sales.

Here’s an expert tip: Boost your visibility strategically when you respond to customer reviews on your social sites. You can do this by always including your brand name in response to positive reviews, and always leaving it out in response to negative reviews.

That way, when someone searches your brand name, the positive reviews will pop up and the negative ones won’t.

3. Build Better Brand Authority

Building a following on social media is incredibly beneficial to your business. The more followers and engagement your social pages have, the more authority your brand carries.

It’s easy once you get a little momentum going. Consumers love to take to social media to share their latest purchase, a great meal, or promote their favorite brands.

Harness the power of this free marketing by having a significant social media presence.

Use your social media to show your brand authority to consumers. By this we mean, design your social pages with a brand unity and promote polished and professional content.

Keep in mind that most people have a following on social media with shared interests to their own. That means that your followers’ engagement matters. The chance of overlap in your target demographic is high.

Interact with customers regularly to show your best business practices. It’s an opportunity to increase their customer loyalty by making them feel validated. And it gets the eyes of their friends on your brand. Win-Win!

4. Save On Marketing Costs

When it comes to marketing, return on investment is everything. An excellent ROI is one of the best advantages of social media because of its low prices and high visibility.

Nearly every social media site is free, quick, and easy to use.

Even if you choose to run ads on social media, they are relatively inexpensive compared to other marketing tactics.

Paid social media advertising can be very effective when it’s done right. Platforms like Facebook offer valuable data analysis to their advertisers, making it easy to see how your tactics are working.

Start off with a small investment to hone your strategy. Then take the knowledge you learn to build a larger successful social media ad campaign with excellent ROI.

5. Gain Marketplace Insight

To be successful in business, you have to know your customer base inside and out.

There has never been an easier way to get an understanding of your customers than social media.

With social media, you have the unique advantage of seeing your customers’ interests and opinions about your business, your competition, and so much more.

Gaining this insight can help you better understand your industry, your marketing efforts, and what you can do to improve your sales.

You can quickly analyze which type of content engages the most users based on views, likes, number of reposts, comments, etc. Track how engagement relates to conversions and use that information to boost your sales.

And That’s Just the Beginning!

The list of advantages of social media marketing could go on and on. These are just the top five reasons it’s an incredibly valuable resource for any business.

As you can see, social media and marketing are a match made in heaven.

If you have any questions or comments about this article or any of the products offered by me, check out my consultancy company, Larsik Corp – larsik.com